Fremantle's dream start to the season came to a halt on Sunday night as St Kilda emerged from a fiercely even contest in the final quarter to claim a thrilling 15-point win at Docklands.

In a match of stunning ebb and flow, the Dockers led by a minor score at the first change before the Saints found parity at half-time and then took their own one-point lead into three-quarter-time.

But despite the absence of key forward Nick Riewoldt, St Kilda opened the final term with four straight goals to kill off the western visitors 16.12 (108) to 14.9 (93) and join Brisbane at the top of the AFL heap with 4-0 starts to 2010.

Without Riewoldt for inspiration the Saints found Stephen Milne and Brendon Goddard ready, willing and able to share the role of talisman with five goals apiece, while the industrious Nick Dal Santo accrued 35 possessions and two majors.

Milne in particular was mesmeric with some terrific leads and accurate kicking, including a sublime grubber from the pocket in the final quarter, complementing his clever link-up play and tough bodywork in the forward 50.

The player at the centre of last week's controversial stoush with Mick Malthouse turned on the magic and some neat footwork and ingenuity set up Adam Schneider for the match-sealing goal 13 minutes into the final term.

That put St Kilda 25 points clear of the Dockers but Mark Harvey's gutsy charges were not done and a quick pair of goals to David Mundy and Clancee Pearce kept Fremantle just in the contest.

But with tiring bodies across all pockets of the Docklands pitch, the Saints managed to control the football and run down the clock with no goals being registered in the final 10 minutes.

Matthew Pavlich turned in another immense performance for Fremantle, booting five goals for the second straight week, but the veteran big man ran out of gas and struggled to involve himself late in proceedings.

The Dockers' finest football in their gutsy seven-point win over Geelong in round three came in the last quarter, in which they reined in a 14-point deficit to overhaul the defending AFL premiers.

But a repeat of those heroics was not to be as St Kilda smashed the visitors at the contested ball in the final term and distanced itself by enough to hang on for an important victory.

In the final analysis there was very little to separate the sides and that was reflected on the scorecard for the better part of three quarters, with the Saints just shading the inside 50 count 56-51.

Fremantle managed to dominate the stoppages with the towering Aaron Sandilands racking up a colossal 36 hit-outs but St Kilda just saw more possession - recording 57 more uses of the football and working more as a unit with 11 goal assists.

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